Lifetime Achievement – The City of Calgary’s gaffe-prone public art program

OTTAWA, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) today held its 20th annual Teddy Waste Awards ceremony, celebrating the best of the worst in government waste from the past year. CTF Federal Director Aaron Wudrick served as host, joined by the CTF’s pig mascot Porky the Waster Hater and talented event hostess Jessica. The awards event took place on Parliament Hill in the Charles Lynch Press Theatre.

The Teddy, the pig-shaped award given annually by the CTF to government’s worst waste offenders, is named for Ted Weatherill, a former federal appointee who was fired in 1999 for submitting a panoply of dubious expense claims, including a $700 lunch for two.

“Every year, the competition is stiff, but we narrow it down to a handful of the most ridiculous stories,” said Wudrick. “Sadly, we are never short on nominees, as governments seem to be very good at finding new ways to waste money.”

It appears that when Canadian politicians smell cash in the public trough, they go glassy-eyed and drop all restraint. Federal, provincial, and municipal governments have an ongoing history of outrageous spending, including paying big bucks for non-exploding sausages, softer couch cushions, giant duck mascots, and fake lakes. Death, taxes, and misspending are apparently life’s only certainties.

In a cold open for a 2017 episode of the ABC comedy Black-ish, protagonists Bow and Dre walk into a bakery to buy a gender-reveal cake. The bakery has every type of cake, the employee says – but not for gay weddings. Bow and Dre leave in disgust. At the next bakery, they cut to the chase: “You don’t discriminate against people based on race, gender or sexual orientation, do you?” To which the stern-looking baker replies: “Do not like French-Canadians.” Initially stunned by the random reply, Bow and Dre quickly indicate they can live with that, and proceed with the order.

What passed for laughs in America would never fly up here. But the mention of French-Canadians in juxtaposition with fundamental civil rights was downright prescient, if not ironic. In this fictitious TV show, everyone’s fundamental civil rights are worthy of protection – except if you’re French-Canadian.

To adapt to our increasingly just-in-time lives the Canadian health-care system is on an upward trajectory toward digitization. This necessary modernization of health care means better patient outcomes as well as improved insight into future health-care decisions.

Despite the personal and system-wide benefits of a more digital health-care system, what cannot be ignored is that your health information has value to you, but also to people wishing to take advantage or use the information inappropriately.

The fact remains that Canadians may also be unwittingly sharing their health information. Whether it’s apps that are used, mailing lists that are joined, or online surveys, what’s really being tracked is personal health information that tells unscrupulous users information you may not want them to know. If the fine print in the privacy agreement isn’t read and understood, it’s hard to know where your information goes and how it’s used. “Every time you give a little bit away you’re putting yourself at risk.”

You may recall the Canada 150 project known as the Parliament Hill ice rink. It was a boondoggle that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation awarded with a federal “Teddy Government Waste Award.”

We finally received access to information documents from the federal government to give us an understanding of how this sesquicentennial-inspired monster came to fruition.

Who knows why the idea of building a temporary ice hockey rink on Parliament Hill was deemed of paramount importance for the Canada 150 celebrations, or why a simple patch of ice surrounded by a few plywood boards wouldn’t do the trick.

The project was spearheaded by Ottawa bureaucrats using taxpayer money, so of course it would have to be the Rolls-Royce of ice rinks.

And, since this was a federal government project, it missed its original deadline and the off-the-lot price was $82.M, translating into a staggering $100K per-day cost.

As this Franken-Rink evolved from harebrained idea to entrenched reality, the correspondence between bureaucrats responsible for this fiasco makes for unintentionally funny reading.

The Manitoba Liberals are accusing Brian Pallister’s government of going against its word by using tax dollars to promote a PST cut.

During the 2016 Manitoba election campaign, the Progressive Conservatives promised to eliminate all public spending on partisan advertising.

The party also said it would empower the auditor general to review all advertising and dismiss any promotional materials found to be in violation of the rules.

Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said the government is breaking its promise by advertising an upcoming reduction of the provincial sales tax to seven per cent.

“There’s no public service element to this,” Lamont said. “It’s not telling people to go get vaccinated. It’s not telling people about a new program they can take advantage of. It’s really just spending public money to promote the party in power.”

This past week, Global News’ investigative team published an explosive investigation detailing how some pharmacists are making big bucks by scamming the Ontario Drug Benefit Program out of millions of dollars.

The ODB pays for medications for Ontario’s most vulnerable: children, the elderly and those on social assistance. When a qualified patient fills a prescription, they either don’t pay anything or pay a few dollars, and ODB covers the rest.

The program costs the province more than $5.4 billion a year.

Pharmacists bill the province every two weeks for medication dispensed to ODB patients and are paid shortly afterwards.

Dishonest pharmacists over-bill by tacking extra drugs that they never dispensed onto these bills so that they are reimbursed for more drugs than they have sold. Untold millions earmarked for the sick and needy end up in their pockets.

A Richmond pharmacist who submitted thousands of fraudulent claims to B.C.’s PharmaCare system, mainly to save money for his poor and elderly clients, has been sentenced to a year of house arrest.

Jin Tong (Tom) Li, 41, pleaded guilty this week to one charge of obtaining more than $5,000 under a false pretense.

That crime can carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, but Provincial Court Judge Georgia Docolas said the 12-month conditional sentence recommended by Crown and defence lawyers was more appropriate.

“This is what I will describe as a low-sophistication crime, committed primarily to benefit his low-income, senior patients,” Docolas said Wednesday.

Nonetheless, she added, Li’s actions have had a serious impact.

“Any time there is a breach of trust involving a public body like PharmaCare … the impact is high because it affects all British Columbians,” the judge said.

Li sold his house to pay back the more than $616,000 he owed the province, the judge said, and he and his wife have had to move in with family. Li is now a stay-at-home dad to their three children while his wife had to go back to school so she could find a job to support the family.

Ontario Minister of Health and Long-Term Care Christine Elliott said Thursday that she is “aware” of the pharmacy fraud brought to light in a Global News/Toronto Star investigation, adding: “It is something that I take very seriously.”

The investigation exposed pharmacists who are overbilling the Ontario Drug Benefit Program (ODB) and, at times, pocketing hundreds of thousands, — if not millions — of dollars.

“We want to know what’s happening and then what steps need to be taken by the College (of Pharmacists) or by the ministry so it’s probably going to be on both sides that action will need to be taken,” said Elliott.

When asked what steps might be taken, Elliott was vague on details.

The Office of the Auditor General of Ontario has previously called out the ministry on four occasions for having too few inspectors.

“There are 4,200 pharmacies; they only inspect about six per cent a year,” said current auditor general Bonnie Lysyk in an interview. “There’s more money to be recovered.”

“That might be one of the solutions,” said Elliott. “We’re still discussing the situation with the ministry.”

Lysyk said the AG report identified $3.9 million in 2015-16 in inappropriate payments made to pharmacists through the ODB, including $900,000 in billings related to prescriptions being filled for deceased people.